Not Applicable
This invention relates to high volume pagewidth printing. More particularly, this invention relates to a method of pagewidth printing and to a printer.
The following United States applications and patents are hereby incorporated by reference: U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,227,652 6,213,588 6,213,589 6,231,163 6,247,795 Ser. No. 09/113,099 U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,244,691 6,257,704 Ser. No. 09/112,778 U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,220,694 6,257,705 6,247,794 6,234,610 6,247,793 6,264,306 6,241,342 6,247,792 6,264,307 6,254,220 6,234,611 Ser. Nos. 09/112,808 09/112,809 U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,821 Ser. No. 09/113,083 U.S. Pat. No. 6,247,796 Ser. Nos. 09/113,122 09/112,793 09/112,794 09/113,128 09/113,127 U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,227,653 6,234,609 6,238,040 6,188,415 6,227,654 6,209,989 6,247,791 Ser. No. 09/112,764 U.S. Pat. No. 6,217,153 Ser. No. 09/112,767 U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,113 Ser. No. 09/112,807 U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,247,790 6,260,953 6,267,469 Ser. Nos. 09/425,419 09/425,418 09/425,194 09/425,193 09/422,892 09/422,806 09/425,420 09/422,893 09/693,703 09/693,706 09/693,313 09/693,279 09/693,727 09/693,708 09/575,141 09/113,053, 09/526,504
High volume, high resolution printing is an objective that has been sought by the manufacturers of wide format printers for some time. Wide format printers have been available to the public for many years. Examples of popular wide format printers are the Hewlett Packard (HP) 1000/5000, the HP 3000/3500, the Epson 7000/10,000 and many others.
These printers all have a traversing printhead that traverses a print medium while depositing ink on the medium. Applicant believes that these printers suffer from inherent disadvantages, particularly when attempts are made to utilize the design of such printers in order to achieve faster printing speeds at high resolutions.
Central to the problem of achieving high printing speeds is the ability to achieve a printhead that is capable of generating the necessary number of ink dots at a suitable rate.
Further, in order to achieve accurate printing, it is desirable that a row or band of the image be created in as little print cycles as possible, and preferably in a single print cycle. It follows that it is undesirable for a traversing printhead to be used in an attempt to achieve high print speeds and that a single printhead incorporating a suitable number of inkjet nozzles is required.
Thermal printheads also referred to as bubble jet printheads and piezoelectric printheads have been available for some time. These suffer from excessive heat build up and energy consumption and have therefore been found by the applicant to not be suitable for use in a pagewidth configuration. A number of disadvantages associated with such printheads are set out in U.S. application Ser. No. 09/526,504.
The applicant has developed a printhead chip that is capable of producing images having a resolution as high as 1600 dpi. These chips are manufactured using integrated circuit fabrication techniques. Details of the chips are provided in the above referenced applications and patents. Applicant believes that these printhead chips are extremely suitable for use in wide format printers. The reason for this is that such chips operate at extremely high speeds due to the large number of nozzle arrangements required in a single chip and due to the fact that such chips can be driven at an extremely high cyclical rate.
The Applicant has been faced with a number of difficulties in order to achieve the effective use of such printhead chips in wide format printers. One particular difficulty identified by the Applicant is the effective control of a number of such printhead chips to achieve accurate printing.
According to a first aspect of the invention, there is provided a method of pagewidth printing, the method comprising the steps of:
feeding a print medium through a printing zone; and
ejecting drops of ink at a rate of at least one billion drops per second from a print assembly on to the print medium in the printing zone to generate an image on the print medium.
According to a second aspect of the invention, there is provided a print assembly for pagewidth inkjet printing, the print assembly comprising
an elongate carrier that is mountable on a support structure of a printer in an operative position with respect to a platen of the printer;
a number of printhead chips that are positioned on the carrier, the printhead chips together defining a printhead that is configured to eject at least one billion drops per second into a printing zone defined between the printhead and the platen of the printer; and
control circuitry that is also positioned on the carrier and that is configured to control operation of the printhead chips.
According to a third aspect of the invention, there is provided an inkjet printer that comprises
a support structure;
a platen positioned in the support structure;
a print assembly positioned operatively with respect to the platen, the print assembly comprising
an elongate carrier;
a number of printhead chips positioned on the carrier, the printhead chips together defining a printhead that is configured to eject at least one billion drops per second into a printing zone defined between the printhead and the platen; and
control circuitry that is also positioned on the carrier and that is configured to control operation of the printhead chips; and
a feed mechanism positioned on the support structure for feeding a print medium though the printing zone.
The invention is now described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings. The following description is not intended to limit the broad scope of the above summary.